احکام القرآن للتھانوی میں اہلِ کتاب سے متعلق قرآن کے منتخب احکام کا تحقیقی جائزہ

The Seleted Quranic Commandments concerning the People of the Book (A Study of Thanwi’s Ahkam-al-Quran)

Abstract

The Holy Quran is the glorious divine book near Muslims. Muslim scholars have dedicated their lives for the service of the Quran in different capacaties. A wothmentioning Quranic service is Tafsir (the science of exegesis of the Quran) and one of the prominent genres of Tafsir in rank and the greatest of them in benefit, is derivation of Shari‘ah laws from the Holy Qur’an, for the laws of the Shari‘ah are the practical message of the Qur’an which clarifies the path to be adopted for humanity in its everyday life. The branch of knowledge deals with the derived Quranic provisions is known as Ahkam al-Quran.

From the earliest of the known compilations on this subject is the book Ahkam al-Qur’an by Imam al-Shafi‘i. While famous Ahkami Tafsir of the subcontinent is “Ahkam-al-Qur'an by Maulana Thanwi”.

Initially, Maulana Thanwi’proposed that the name of the book be Dala’il al-Qur’an ‘ala Madhhab al-Nu‘man (The Proofs of the Qur’an for the School of Nu‘man). Later, it occurred to him to not suffice with only listing proofs, rather to mention all that is extracted from the verses of the Noble Qur’an, of jurisprudence and principles, etiquettes and behaviour, guidance and counsel, with a special attention to the issues which have occurred in the latter times on which comprehensive analyses with respect to them are not found in the books of the early scholars. Thereupon, he changed the name of the book to Ahkam al-Qur’an. Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi distributed the responsibility of authoring this Tafsir to his trusted pupils who extracted provisions from Qur’an as per Hanafi school of thought. This paper delas with six important Quranic provisions from “Ahkam-al-Qur'an by Maulana Thanwi” which are related to the People of the Book, i.e., Jews and Christians.